In addition to TLR4 and TLR3, TLR2 is involved in pathological cardiac remodelling, as confirmed by reduced cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis in TLR2 knockout mice compared with those in wild-type mice, providing an important theoretical basis for the cardiac-specific overexpression of TLR2 in our study (Higashikuni et al., 2013). Here, TLR2 is linked to cardiac hypertrophy.